PHOTO CHALLENGE: Show us your urban farm lifestyle and let’s see how you do, teach, learn, love, and share urban farming. Urban farming may include backyard chickens and other livestock, gardening, permaculture, or other sustainable elements of a backyard farm or homestead.

DEADLINE: Midnight, November 1st, 2017 (PST)

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT: One winner will be chosen by judicial voting, and announced by November 7th, by reposting chosen photo to Dare 2 Dream Farms’ Instagram page. A private message will be sent to the winner with instructions for claiming the prize.

We’ve got a scary Heat Wave starting today in California. Other states around us are going to be affected too. This could last for 7-10 days, break and then start anew!

For those of you who have chickens but haven’t yet had to put a plan into place for protecting your ladies from extreme heat: NOW is the time. The key elements for helping your chickens beat the heat are water, shade, and ventilation. Here are some tips:

Evaporative Cooling: If you have good soil drainage and moving air, you can spray down the ground with water early in the day. As the heat of the day increases it will pull some of the heat with the evaporating water, keeping the chicken area a bit cooler. Using misters can also be helpful, though they are a bit more expensive to install and run especially if you’re in a cooler area that doesn’t normally require you to help your beat the heat except for short heat waves like this.

Freeze Treats: Frozen watermelon seems to be the favorite but other melons, berries, and veggies can work just as well. You could even mash or purée your mixed kitchen or garden scraps, put them in a metal bowl and freeze it for a chicken slushee!

Extra Waterers: Leave out more water, and even extra water containers as the chickens will be drinking more often and shouldn’t have to stand around a crowded watered waiting a turn.

Air Movement: Do you have a portable fan you’re not using while you’re out for the day? Run it out near the coop on an extension cord to keep the air circulating. This works especially well if it blows towards the chickens over something cold like a bucket of ice.

More Shade: If you have potted plants, patio furniture or other large objects in the yard, rearranging them near the coop short term will help to cast more shade. Alternatively, o draped over the run can help create a larger shaded space. Something like this:

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask you for a glass of milk. But, if you give a mouse chicken feed, fresh water, warm bedding, and a safe place to sleep, he’ll make a home in your chicken coop, invite his friends, contaminate the feed and water, and introduce parasites and diseases to your chickens.

Like the boy in that adorable children’s book, I don’t get particularly squeamish from rodents like mice. Rats, on the other hand, no thank you! But together, those rodents can be vectors for nearly 50 different diseases affecting chickens and humans, most notably salmonella, and can also commonly carry mites into the coop. Infestations of rodents have been linked to both farm and house fires. Rats also love chicken eggs, and in extreme cases, they can even prey upon baby chicks or sleeping chickens. So, as cute as the field mice may be, its always best to keep them away from the coop.

Keep chicken feed and water out of reach. Chickens will give chase to rodents during the daytime, and they’ll occasionally catch them successfully. Mice and rats, being nocturnal, will come to feast when the chickens are sound asleep, so it’s best not to leave out a buffet for them.

Remove the chicken feed from the coop at night when you’re out locking up the chickens and store it safely with the bagged feed in a metal container. Alternatively, you can suspend the feeder so it hangs to keep it off the ground. Rats can cling to rope or even chain, so smooth cable is the best choice. Treadle style feeders require a hen’s weight to open and will easily keep mice from accessing the feed so you don’t have to remove it from the coop nightly.

Clean up spilled feed.Even if you remove the feed every night, anything that’s on the ground will be a gold mine for rodents. TIP: Switch to pellet feed to help prevent chickens from making a mess with their food.

Manual waterers make fresh water easy to access for rodents. Empty them nightly, and refill them with clean water in the morning for your chickens. Alternatively, switching to automatic watering systems like nipple waters will keep them from finding water in the coop.

Eliminate large holes or gaps in the coop. Rodents can chew through wood and plastic, and mice can squeeze through openings even smaller than one inch.

Use 1/2 inch hardware cloth or sheet metal to cover any large holes or gaps in the construction of your coop, and to enclose the run completely.

Bury wire around the perimeter of the coop and run to prevent rats from tunneling to get into the coop.

1/2 inch hardware cloth used to cover ventilation holes in a chicken coop

Tidy up the coop. Rodents thrive in messy, cluttered areas that don’t see much activity. Keep the coop clean, and the area around the coop free of debris to eliminate places where rodents can make a nest.

Use Mint. Mint grown around the coop or dried and used in the nesting boxes or bedding can help deter rodents from coming around the coop. It’s important to note that this solution cannot be employed successfully on it’s own, and should be used in tandem with good coop and flock management to experience true benefits. In addition to keeping the rodents away, mint can also benefit hens through aromatherapy.

Mint grows easily and can be used fresh or dried in a chicken coop to deter rodents.

Adopt a cat or dog. Even if the dog or cat doesn’t hunt rodents, the smell of a larger animal in the area will help keep mice and rats at bay, as well as other larger predators on the hunt for chicken dinner. Just be careful not to adopt cats or dogs with a prey drive.

If prevention is unsuccessful, don’t be hard on yourself. Although rodents do not always show up in areas with chickens, they are a natural cohabitant. There are plenty of ways to eliminate a rodent population but it’s necessary to be very cautious with traps and poisons.

As we enter the Spring season on the Central Coast, blossoms are populating our fruit trees and seedlings are sprouting in the garden, but these are not the only places on the farm where the promise of a diverse and healthy harvest can be found. A cornucopia of wild greens, fruits, and mushrooms are emerging after a cold, wet winter; and we have been enjoying the addition of these healthy treats into our daily meals. From salads made with fresh, juicy greens like Lamb’s Quarters and Miner’s Lettuce to hearty soups made with Chanterelles, everyone here on the farm has caught the foraging bug. Here we share some tips and beginner guidelines for responsible foraging around your own home!

Forage only from abundant, clean sources

When collecting plants or other food from the wild, make sure that you harvest from sources that are widely available. If the plant you are looking for is fairly common and you find an area where it grows in large quantities, by all means help yourself. If, on the other hand, there are only a handful of this type of plant growing around your area, it is best to look for this treat elsewhere to ensure that you don’t accidentally eliminate the plant from your area by over-harvesting.

It is also absolutely necessary to harvest from clean environments only. Plants draw their nutrients from the soil, and if the soil they grow in is full of toxins or pollutants, such as on the side of a busy road, then the plant may have absorbed some of those bad chemicals. To make sure that your wild diet is healthy, not harming, collect your plants from pristine and familiar environments.

Leave your source alive and healthy

The best way to make sure that your favorite wild treats are there for you and future generations in years to come is to leave your source in good health. This means not only harvesting from abundant sources but also helping the plant continue to thrive where you found it. One way you can do this as you forage is to take only what you need from the plant. For example, do not pull a plant up by the roots if all you need are the new leaves, seed pods, or fruit. Leave the plant as whole as possible.

Another great way to be a good steward with your favorite foraging spots is to be a propagator, like the birds and animals of the forest who spread seeds and pollen so that plants continue to grow year after year. For example, if the plant you are harvesting has seeds try collecting some and scattering them around the area you harvested from. This way, not only will the plants you’ve discovered be there next year but you will have also helped create new ones. This is a great way to create even more abundant sources of wild food for yourself and others in the future.

Go at the right time

Early morning is a great time to go foraging for most plants, as many tend to wilt on warm afternoons. Foraging early also gives you time to clean and prepare what you’ve harvested at home on the same day so that everything is fresh and delicious! Dry weather is also ideal for harvesting most plants. If the weather is too wet, there is always the risk that the extra moisture will make your harvest start to rot before you get home—not to mention the mud!

Besides considering the weather and time of day, the time of year also matters a great deal. To get harvests of the highest quality, it is always best to know the growing cycle of the plant you are looking for so that you’ll know what part of the plant all of it’s energy is being used for. For example, in Fall and Winter most plants concentrate their energy into their root system to make it through the dark season until Spring. Likewise, you wouldn’t be able to harvest wild blackberries in Spring because the plant won’t bear fruit until late Summer. When figuring out what you can expect to get the best of from a plant for any time of year, remember this general rule:

In SPRING, the new SHOOTS; In SUMMER, the FRUITS; In FALL, the ROOTS!

Have the right tools

Whenever we take a foraging trip on the farm, we always go prepared. This means plenty of bags or buckets to carry all of our wild goodies home in, as well as keeping them separate and organized. Small garden spades, clippers, or other tools can make harvesting easier and cleaner. Tools help us harvest with more precision and allow us to take only what we need, like any good forager is mindful to do.

Gloves and long clothing are also a good idea, as foraging in the wild around the farm means sometimes swimming through a patch of poison oak or stinging nettle to get to a sweet spot on the other side. Keeping our skin covered helps ensure that our experience collecting from the woods and fields stays a positive and healthy one!

Keep it legal

If you are lucky enough to have something wild growing on your own property, then it is a lot easier to make sure that your foraging is legal. When venturing off of your own property, legal foraging can be more confusing. Here are some general rules for taking a foraging trip on to public lands, like neighborhoods, forests, and parks.

When foraging in urban areas, keep to the sidewalk. Fruits or other plants that hang over or grow on public sidewalks may be collected legally but stay off of lawns, driveways, fences, or other private property. For free maps of public urban foraging spots in your area, check out FallenFruit.org.

If your foraging trip takes you into more wild settings, remember that just because you are on public land doesn’t mean that it is legal to forage. Most state parks and forests prohibit any foraging whatsoever. National forests, on the other hand, usually allow foraging up to 1 lb. of plant matter by an individual. These guidelines may vary from location to location, so be sure to check PublicLands.org for any bans or foraging suspensions, as well as for locations that are more lenient about foraging amounts per person.

Prepare to process before you forage

The greatest sin of a forager is to over-harvest but perhaps the second greatest sin is to waste a harvest from neglect. Many a forager has spent a day collecting prizes in the wild only to return home tired and unprepared to clean, use, or preserve what they have harvested. Greens, fruits, and other plants then rot and waste in their collection bags due to neglect.

When planning your foraging trip, remember to factor in the time and energy required by your harvest AFTER you leave the woods. Have everything you need to clean and process your plants ready at home before you leave so that you can get the most from your harvest.

Share and enjoy!

The only thing more fun than foraging is sharing your wild treats with friends and family. When you share your harvest, be sure to let the gift receiver know that you foraged their goodies with care and invite them to join you on your next trip to the wild banquet!

The beauty of summer fades too quickly every year; and just as we wish we could capture sunlight to carry with us into the dark winter days, we also wish to preserve the flavor of cherry tomatoes off the vine and the crunch of a fresh cucumber. Of course these are also a great way of making food last when harvest bears us more than we are prepared to eat. Here are nine ways to store summer in your pantry.

Before you get started with any of these nine methods, make sure you get the right supplies for storage. Mason jars are a staple for canning and for storing dried or preserved foods; but don’t over pay for them. We recommend getting a 12-pack of wide mouth (wm) pint Ball jars. They can be used for canning and fermenting, or even storing dried goods in. (We also like to use them for drinking glasses: durable, decorative, inexpensive, and easy to find if you need to replace them. No more hunting for discontinued glassware or buying an entire set of glasses because one broke. Shoot, I even use them for wine!)

If you plan to make spices like powdered garlic or peppers, you might try the cute little 4-oz Ball jars that don’t take up as much space. You might also think about picking up a vacuum sealer. The Weston 11-inch Professional Advantage is the most highly recommended by America’s Test Kitchen. You can purchase pre-cut bags, or buy a roll of bags to cut at whatever length you choose. Mesh bags are also handy for cured food, and look pretty cool in your pantry.

Pickling

Pickling is the most common preservation process, but there are incredible flavors to be had by pickling, so don’t sneeze at it. Tons of vegetables can be pickled: cucumbers, peppers, beets, carrots, beans, garlic and more. Wash the veggies, and cover with a brine using 2 tablespoons of salt per quart of water. Leave to brine for 2 days and then drain. Put sugar and white vinegar into a pot to boil and dissolve. Add veggies and can into sanitized jars. You can add pickling spices to the sugar vinegar mixture; or you can add herbs and pickle flavorful veggies together like garlic cucumber pickles, or jalapeno bush beans.

Fermenting

Fermenting vegetables and fruits requires a lot more care, but you get amazing foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, and chutney. Using a salt, whey, or starter culture, create a brine with purified water. The salt is key in fermenting for flavor and quality. We use San Francisco Salt Co’s Sherpa Pink salt. You can get a pound of salt for $7.50, which is a steal for ordinary salt, but this is amazing stuff. Really. If this is the one thing you take from this article I will be happy. It deserves it’s own picture. Here it is:

If you already have some wide mouth mason jars, you can get started with an Easy Fermenter Kit that comes with lids, a vacuum pump, recipes, and a 30-day membership to The Fermenting Club for help.

If you get the chance, try Kanji, a popular Indian pickled carrot drink. Wash a few pounds of carrots and grate into a jar. Add clean water, salt, hot spices, and close lid but leave a tiny hole for gas to escape. Ferment for 7-10 days, strain out the carrots and drink the liquid!

Canning Tomatoes

Wash and remove bad tomatoes. Roma and San Marzano tomatoes are great for this. To remove the skin, score them and blanch them in boiling water, and toss them in a bowl of ice water. Fill a jar with peeled tomatoes, add a little lemon juice or vinegar. Submerge jars in water, boiling for 30-50 minutes and then let cool.

Dehydrating Fruit and Veggies

To make dried fruit and veggie chips, you can find or make yourself a tray. Something that works well is chicken wire attached inside a wood frame. Place the tray with vegetable or fruit chips somewhere warm and elevated to encourage airflow above and below the tray. Turn the chips every day until they are dry. You can dry beans, leaves for tea, fruits, and vegetables. You can also purchase a dehydrator to eliminate the process of turning the chips every day, and keep them safe from hungry insects. The one we use is the Excalibur 9-Tray Dehydrator which we love for not only the quantity of food you can dehydrate at once, but also because the air circulation is excellent, and clean up is super easy. We’ve used it for years with no problems. Our favorite dehydrated veggie is seaweed style shredded kale, but it does a bang up job on tomatoes too. Mmmm!

Hang Dry Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and herbs can be hung to dry year round. For onions, garlic, herbs, peppers, and tomato clusters, hang to dry in an airy place protected from the sun and heat. You can braid onions and garlic, or create racks to hang them by their bulbs to dry. Peppers can be strung using a needle and thread through the stem and tied off in small intervals. These make beautiful kitchen decorations while they’re drying, and keep well after they are dried.

Sun Drying

This method is a great method to preserve nutrients. It takes only a few days. You can make your own solar dehydrator with a box or tray covered by a clear glass or plastic sheet to transmute sun rays and heat into a solar “oven”. This will produce a much lower temperature than an oven, which will maintain nutrient structure inside the fruits or vegetables of choice. You can also use a drying net rack in the sun. This $22 Magarz 4 Layer Drying Rack Net allows the heat of the sun to do its job while keeping bugs out; plus its collapsible and washable.

Make Powders and Flours

You can make powder or flour out of so many food items: pumpkin, banana, sweet potato, beans, peppers and other grains. Some foods require you to cook the food first. Otherwise, you can simply dry the food and then pound it into a powder. You can use a mortar and pestle like this cutie, which is good for tons of other things too; but to alleviate the time and headache of hand grinding all the dried food into a quantity of powder you can use for baking, you’d be better off getting a good food processor. The one we use when processing tons of dried foods is this Cuisinart 9-Cup. Aside from processing powdered peppers other spices like a champ, this is easily the most durable and multi-functional food processor we’ve ever owned. (We’ve gone through quite a few to get to this one with the amount of cooking our little kitchen sees.) The most important thing is to make sure whatever you’re turning into flour is very dry. To make a fine flour with a mortar and pestle, you will want to sieve the powder out and continue pounding the rest. When you’re finished, place in a jar in a dry storage area. You can use it by mixing it in with your regular flour or experiment with a new recipe.

Fruit Leathers

This process is done by cooking the fruits and then letting it dry. This brings out the sugars for a leathery texture. You can make Pumpkin, squash, beets, or any other fruits and meaty vegetables. You will first wash, then cook, then puree, add honey and spices, and then spread on a tray to dry in your dehydrator.

Curing

You can cure and keep some vegetables in a dry storage for a good long while. To keep root vegetables such as potatoes and celeriac for a long keep in the cellar or food pantry, cure them in a warm shady place with air flow for a week before putting them in a food pantry. This will thicken their skin and allow them to stay better for longer. Onions and garlic can also be cured in a well-ventilated and shady space by layering them on a pallet or table so each bulb has maximum airflow around it. Garlic must be cured for about a month, or until the stalk is dry and brittle; whereas onions take only 3-4 days. When they’re finished, cut the stalk off and remove the outer layer of skin if it is dirty. Most gourds and winter squashes like pumpkins, spaghetti squash and butternut squash can be be preserved throughout the winter in cold storage without curing; but they should be fully ripe when harvested.